In the wake of tsunami
calamity
Indonesian
army steps up war in Aceh
By John Roberts
wsws
5 January 2005
There are growing
signs that the Indonesian military (TNI) is exploiting the current
catastrophe in northern Sumatra to crush the separatist Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) and establish its unchallenged control over the resource-rich
province of Aceh.
So far the death toll
from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Aceh on December 26 is
more than 100,000 and is likely to rise much higher. From Lhokseumawe on
the east coast through the provincial capital Banda Aceh near Sumatra’s
northern tip to Meulaboh on the west coast, cities and towns have been
obliterated.
Transport and other
infrastructure have been torn apart. Hundreds of thousands are desperately
in need of water, food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. There is
now a serious risk that further lives will be lost through disease and
hunger.
Yet, rather than
concentrating resources on emergency relief efforts, the Indonesian armed
forces, with the approval of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, are
preoccupied with their counterinsurgency operations against GAM fighters.
While refugees are desperate for supplies and relief workers for
transport, the TNI has launched offensives against GAM in various
locations across the province.
When the tsunami hit,
the military already had 40,000 troops and paramilitary police in Aceh as
a result of its ongoing campaign to wipe out GAM. The current offensive
initiated in May 2003, under former president Megawati Sukarnoputri,
included armour and artillery as well as air and naval support and was
billed as Indonesia’s own version of the US “shock and awe” methods in
Iraq.
Despite a state of
emergency and a media blackout in Aceh over the last year, human rights
organisations have reported gross and widespread abuse of local Acehnese
by the military, including arbitrary detention, torture and summary
execution. Yudhoyono, a former general, was Megawati’s top security
minister and played a crucial role in planning and overseeing the
offensive until he resigned last March to contest the presidency.
In the aftermath of
the December 26 tsunami, the TNI’s responded by dispatching an additional
15,000 troops to Aceh, ostensibly to carry out humanitarian relief work.
But far from the well-oiled machine that swung into action against GAM the
previous year, the military’s emergency assistance in the province has
been marked by disorganisation, delays and disinterest.
On December 27, TNI
chief General Endriartono indicated that the military would respond in
kind to a unilateral ceasefire declared by exiled GAM leaders in Sweden to
allow relief efforts to go ahead. It soon became clear, however, that the
TNI had no intention of passing up the opportunity to inflict a defeat on
GAM, which had suffered losses during the tsunami and earthquake.
The first media
reports related to a particular incident. On Thursday, a GAM spokesman
announced that Indonesian troops had killed two GAM members in the
Peurelak area of East Aceh,
including the local commander Afrizal bin Abdul Manaf. He said TNI troops
had also set fire to a house in the
village of
Idi Reayeuk.
A TNI spokesman acknowledged the clash, but blamed GAM rebels for
provoking the incident by ambushing a convoy of military trucks carrying
relief supplies.
Sweden-based GAM
spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah strenuously denied that GAM fighters had
attacked a convoy. In turn, he accused the military of harassing and
torturing suspected GAM sympathisers in refugee camps. The TNI’s abuse of
refugees was also reported to the Aceh Referendum Information Centre by
volunteers working in Banda Aceh. They alleged that refugees on the way to
relief centres were being interrogated by the military.
Bakhtiar told the
British-based Guardian: “The reports we received are that they are
moving in more troops under the guise of relief operations. We know that
they are trying to track down GAM fighters in the area. We have given
strict orders to maintain a ceasefire and hoped that the Indonesian
military would respect that ceasefire and refrain from military action.”
As it turned out, the
clash was not an isolated incident. The Jakarta Post this week
reported that the TNI had launched operations against GAM hideouts in
Teupin, Batee, Seunebok Langa, Gampung Jalan, Kuburan Cina, Buket Linteung
and Buket Jok areas of East Aceh.
In north Aceh, army attacks were underway in Makmur, Gandapura and
Peusangan.
The TNI not only
confirmed that the operations were taking place, but was completely
unapologetic about them. In comments cited in the Guardian, Colonel
Ahmad Yani Basuki declared: “We have to maintain security operations to
prevent the rebels from attacking vital installations and relief
operations.” According to Basuki, only one third of TNI troops were
involved in military operations and the remainder had been assigned to
relief work. He provided no evidence, however, for any of his assertions.
Lieutenant-Colonel
D.J. Nachrowi told the Jakarta Post that the TNI was “now carrying
out two duties: humanitarian work and the security operation.” He put
forward a different argument, maintaining that the military was obliged by
the state of emergency to attack GAM. “The raids to quell the secessionist
movement in Aceh will continue unless the president issues a decree to
lift the civil emergency and assign us to merely play a humanitarian role
in Aceh,” he said.
Yudhoyono has shown
no intention of lifting the civil emergency in Aceh or of reaching a
temporary truce with GAM. Instead, in an appeal for national unity, the
president has called on the separatist fighters to lay down their weapons,
in other words surrender, to facilitate relief operations. The military,
of course, would remain armed to the teeth.
Various human rights
groups have confirmed that military operations are continuing in Aceh. A
spokesman for the British-based Tapol organisation, Paul Barber, told the
Inter Press Service News Agency: “Under the civil emergency, the
Indonesian military continue to play a leading role and there has been no
cutback in the level of military operations in most of the territory.”
Nasruddin Abubakar,
president of the Aceh Referendum Information Centre, angrily condemned the
TNI’s actions, saying: “The government is still maintaining the civil
emergency and continuing on with military operations in Aceh despite the
fact that the death toll is now close to 100,000. Is the government not
yet satisfied with the killing? Are Acehnese not citizens of Indonesia?”
The fact that the
Indonesian military has been devoting resources—troops, transport and
coordination—to its military operations would help to explain the limited
and chaotic character of the relief effort in Aceh. Air transport is
crucial in reaching remote areas and moving relief supplies into the
province, but it has been a shambles. The Indonesian air force has made no
effort to either regulate airspace over Aceh or to provide air traffic
control to vital airports in Banda Aceh and Medan where international aid
is arriving.
Numerous media
reports point to the bottlenecks in ferrying aid into Aceh and
distributing it. On New Years Eve, an aircraft had to wait 14 hours in
Banda Aceh for a takeoff clearance. At one stage the only surviving air
traffic controller in Aceh was reportedly left to operate the airport
alone. Trucks and fuel have been in critically short supply. The Sydney
Morning Herald reported that US relief organisations in Medan, forced
to rely on their own resources, had “begged, borrowed and rented” 80
trucks to provide transport.
The disinterest of
the Indonesian military in the plight of Acehnese is most graphically
revealed by the inexplicable delay in surveying the extent of the disaster
on the west coast, which lay in the direct path of the tsunami. It took
four days for the Indonesian air force to send a flight over Meulaboh,
which one journalist likened to the scene after the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
Highly publicised
relief operations are now underway by US and Australian military, which
are providing key logistical support. US military helicopters flew the
first significant supplies of aid into Meulaboh last weekend. The
Australian military teams are in Banda Aceh providing clean water and
other assistance. All criticism of the TNI and its appalling human rights
has been shelved as these efforts are hailed in the media as ushering in a
new period of cooperation.
These joint
operations have very little to do with any genuine concern the victims of
the December 26 disaster. Both Australian and the US have been seeking to
reestablish working relations with the Indonesian military since the fall
of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. The relief efforts provide an ideal
opportunity not only to work closely with the TNI but potentially to
establish a foothold in Aceh—a key region with significant oil and
reserves adjacent to the strategic Strait of Malacca.
As for the TNI, the
support provided by the US
and Australian military for relief efforts allows the diversion of
additional Indonesian military forces into its operations against GAM.
There is every indication that the Indonesian military has the tacit
support of Washington and Canberra,
which, unlike in the case of East Timor,
have maintained a complete silence on
Jakarta’s dirty war in Aceh over the last
18 months.
US military
establishment thinking was revealed in a recent comment by the US-based
Stratfor Global Intelligence thinktank. It noted that the tsunami disaster
might prove to be a boon for the military’s campaign against GAM.
“Yudhoyono will send more troops into the province to rebuild and clean up
... If GAM does not agree to settle the problem peacefully, Yudhoyono will
have more troops on hand to clean them out,” it noted.
What is emerging in
embryo in Aceh is a return to the relations that existed prior to 1998,
when the US, Australia and other major powers relied on the ruthless
Suharto dictatorship to safeguard their economic and strategic interests
in Indonesia and the region. Posted by Bulatlat
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